Ultimate Challenge Mode Feedback Thread

Ryan

Ryan

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Today, we introduced Ultimate Challenge Mode, which is exactly what it sounds like - an Ultimate difficulty version of Challenge Mode. On top of adjusted levels, equipment, etc., we've added new common weapons only obtainable in this new mode. It's still in beta, though, and we'd love to hear your feedback on the balance of each stage! Feel free to post any comments, questions, and other Ultimate Challenge Mode discussion here!
 
My first bit of feedback/suggestions after day 1:

  1. Set weapon, armor, shield boxes should scale up to some of the new weapon drops/higher level shields and armors.
  2. Make materials give even more than they already do (this might make parties without FO more tolerable)
  3. On some stages where rangers start with Raygun, Give them
    Rotogun
    instead.
  4. Give hunters more dex on their mags please. Doing caves with only 13x dex on HUcast makes hitless weapons hard to play with.
  5. Make higher tier units drop and add in battle units.
Overall, loving the new ultimate challenge mode so far. I still have yet to test any 2c stages and I haven't even tested all the 1c stages yet. Looking forward to the future with this super fun game mode.
 
Oh forgot to add. Maybe add an exp multiplier to make leveling possible in stages.
 
Set boxes I definitely forgot about and will be looking into.

Materials, well, we’ll see.

I’ll ask Ryan if it is a good idea regarding the gun upgrade on Rangers, but changing the Hunter mag may not be a good idea.

Everybody loved Hucast because he is so powerful, but ST gimped his ATA. If I change the Hunter loadout, then it would lower the power of the other Hunters for more dex, which could gimp them in a different way. Hucast isn’t the only HU in the game, despite what some people think!

Also define higher tier units, you don’t mean rare ones, right?

Update: I don’t think the exp multiplier and leveling is necessary. If you cleared 1c9 already, it’s all probably fine. This is Ultimate “Challenge” mode. Keyword being Challenge. Not progression and make everything easy mode. Everything doesn't have to exactly mirror normal C-mode.
 
I know I'm "double posting", but in case you miss an edit on my previous post, I believe each class in PSO should shine in it's own way.

HUcast having trouble hitting things without a Hit% weapon or DEX mag is by design of ST. That is his character. Hits like a truck... when he hits.

That being said, going with the all classes should shine, ST also gave other hunters and rangers support spells. I was considering the idea of giving hunters and rangers support spells during the loadout in Ult CM, but half of the level that FO gets (Example: If a FO gets S/D/J/Z LV 20 in a particular quest the HU/RA equivalent would be LV 10). This would help with the stages being too difficult, but they'll still be difficult, without having a FO around. Again, FO has to be able to shine.

But back to the HUcast thing, I could adjust the amount of hit weapons dropping to be a little more in CM, but it may not be necessary. You should know, going in there, that HUcast won't hit as good as other hunters. This is Ultimate Challenge mode, not Normal Challenge mode. Enemies have more EVP.

Edit: Oh, and the leveling thing, if you can survive Falz' swipe, then I believe you're good. Pretty sure all the classes can as they are now.
 
That'll just be because it's a common drop.

The comment was most definitely referring to rare units.
 
Yeah I was definitely referring to rare units. I can understand not adding an exp multiplier. Was just thinking about 2p and 3p parties mainly since on some stages, rings are pretty scarce. I can say that a lot of my suggestions/thoughts on this gamemode are comparing ult and normal cmode. I guess that's not the direction you want to take. Also as far as leveling goes, it's not for stats. It's to make another way to get traps/tp. Maybe my opinions lead too strongly towards making the mode easier.
 
On the topic of 1c9, the reason we beat it already is because it's definitely the most balanced stage that I've played so far. It flows really well.
 
Roo said:
Also as far as leveling goes, it's not for stats. It's to make another way to get traps/tp. Maybe my opinions lead too strongly towards making the mode easier.
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OK! This makes sense. I'll look into coming up with some decent multipliers then. Probably something that allows at least 3 to 4 level ups per stage.
 
Levels will not do much in Ultimate Challenge w.r.t. stats, as the relative amount you'd be getting from the level up in comparison to your total stats will be minimal, especially compared to Normal. Getting a multiplier to get the same amount of level ups per stage as you would in Normal would be fine I think.

Off the top of my head, here's what usually happpens for Hunters:

1C1: 1 -> 2/3 (1-2 level ups)
1C2: 5 -> 7/8 (2-3 level ups)
1C3: 7 -> 9/10 (2-3 level ups)
1C4: 10 -> 12/13 (2-3 level ups) -- can't remember tbh
1C5: 13 -> 15/16 (2-3 level ups)
1C6: 15 -> 17/18 (2-3 level ups)
1C7: 18 -> 20/21 (2-3 level ups)
1C8: 20 -> 21/22 (2-3 level ups)
1C9: 23 -> 25/26 (2-3 level ups)

2C1: 5 -> 8/9 (3-4 level ups)
2C2: 13 -> 17/18 (4-5 level ups)
2C3: No levels are gained usually, 1 if people kill a lot of things
2C4: 23 -> 28-30 (5-7 level ups)
2C5: 23 -> 32-33 (9-10 level ups)

You'd probably need to do a lot of trial and error and get people to run to see if they get these averages while running. Of course it will vary depending on how much people hit enemies, what class they're actually running (assuming you still have different levels for each class), how many spawns you end up getting (Episode 1) and what routes you take (Episode 2).
 
I've been saying U1c1, personally.
 
Matt said:
You'd probably need to do a lot of trial and error and get people to run to see if they get these averages while running. Of course it will vary depending on how much people hit enemies, what class they're actually running (assuming you still have different levels for each class), how many spawns you end up getting (Episode 1) and what routes you take (Episode 2).
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I'm probably just going to wing it using a formula to calculate the multiplier for now. Can adjust later.

To get a proper multiplier (M), I'll do something like this (example 1c9):

Going from level 23 to 26 in PSO needs an average of 4268 experience (X).
Average amount of experience gained from the 3 grunt Dimenian enemies is 24. (Y)
We know the multiplier of 1c9 is 2.25
We can figure out the number of enemies (E) needed to level up by doing 3X / (24 * 2.25) = E. (Which is about 237 enemies)

To figure out M, we can plug all those into this, where X is now the average amount for 3 levels on Ultimate (Starting at level 189, X would be 1917905) and Y is the average amount of experience gained from the grunt enemies on Ultimate Ruins (346 experience)

(3 * X) / E / Y = M
(3 * 1917905) / 237 / 346 = M

So the multiplier for U1c9 should be 70x.
 
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Disclaimer: I haven't played Ultimate C-Mode yet. I played a lot of c-mode back in the day.

"Normal" C-mode is based on normal difficulty and the gear that you start with corresponds to that. Things like Psy Armor and Brands are the expectations for lower level characters. I think you could have a lot of fun with ultimate C-mode if you threw in the chance to get some really exciting gear/weapons. It is ultimate mode after all. Maybe create a drop chart that could be different per stage. Start simple with things like Custom Ray, Kaladbolg, Club of Laconium, etc.

"We don't need to go into that room for the best time, but... I see two hildelt's and they might drop..." You'd have to really look into this and test it a bit, but it would be a lot of fun to see a V101, guardwave or spread needle-type items as possible drops. In challenge mode, they are temporary items only for that run so you could sneak in some really fun drops for items that people rarely get in the "real world" of PSO. Reward that player with a J-sword when Gi-Gue falls.

In normal C-mode, the goal was to get that high-hit weapon. What's the goal in U-cmode? Is it still that high-hit weapon? Maybe it's that Summit Moon, Holy Ray or Braveman. "I finally got that Heaven's Punisher from that Hildator! Too bad we don't have a ranger on this run."

C-mode was always hardest at the beginning of each stage, when your gear was crap. As you cleared the monster waves, you got the gear (usually that nice weapon with high hit) that would allow you to start dominating.

As for the HUcast thing, you had to "dance" around the enemies a bit in normal cmode so that in case you missed, they wouldn't wack you. I would run past them so that they would swing but not hit me and that would put me behind or off to the side of the monster. Eventually that Brand or Pallasch with Hit dropped for you.
 
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I haven't played every stage so far (not really got time), but I have played 2C4 and 1C6 today, as those are the two hardest stages of Challenge Mode for each episode.

My personal verdict is that things are way too easy for various reasons. I don't have any specific things brainstormed, but the following need a look at:
  • FO getting Resta in early stages makes the mode a bit of a joke (not sure how early they get it). Unlike Normal, FO does not really have a shortage of TP and can just spam SDJZR all game with no repercussions. This means people can just play mindlessly and not die. I would suggest leaving Resta at 1C7+ and 2C4+ like normal.
  • Stat requirements for all weapons need a revisit. I'm guessing that they currently follow the patterns of the commons, but due to the high levels in Ultimate, every class can equip everything (even FO can equip many weapons it shouldn't be able to), meaning HUcast dominates and there's no reason to play anything else.
    • The actual stats for damage are fine. We did seem way too strong at the end of 2C4, but it might have been all the levels and how many strong weapons we got.
  • EXP multiplier is way too high in 2C4 specifically, possibly other stages. With the high levels, androids have a max stack of Freeze Traps (except RAcaseal) and can keep the entire stage permanently frozen. Coupled with support being spammed for free, this makes 2C4 a breeze. I would suggest just reverting 2C4 back to normal CM multiplier, and cap the level ups to 1 or 2 later if necessary.
Also: Are both episodes using the correct CM DAR? In 2C4, we all had like 10-15 weapons which should never happen. Felt like the enemies had normal mode DAR meaning too many things dropped. Many weapons also dropped in 1C6, but didn't seem too overwhelming.

Furthermore, weapons should never drop with triple stats in Episode 2, which they are in 2C4. In 1C1/1C2/2C1, weapons dropped with 1 stat only, rest were 2 stats maximum (although for Ultimate, I'd say that 1C1/1C2/2C1 should probably drop with double as well). Hit also seemed too common in 2C4, but was fine in 1C6.

There's probably many things I've missed that we touched upon when we played, but this is all I can think of so far. I have no numbers currently, but in the future I plan to have a day just testing all the stages with some friends and coming up with some numbers.
 
The problem with the exp multiplier in 2c4 and probably 2c5 might be that those quests already have an exp multiplier (something like 11x and 30x respectively, I don't remember)? I'm not sure if this was considered in the exp multiplier for those quests? Maybe they were, but my FOnl started at 178 and was 186 when leaving Area 23. In a normal run of 2c4, FO starts at 20 and would probably leave Area 23 around level 24 or 25? I feel like it's around level 25 in 2P, usually less in 3P and 4P.

In 2c4, my FOnl used maybe one fluid throughout all of Seabed Upper and I was trying to spam techs as much as possible (even though the attack techs did almost nothing for damage, I still thought they were worth trying).

Olga 2 was really fast. Divine Punishment didn't kill anyone because we are so highly leveled. Even my FO could live through one beam of light. I suppose it could kill some classes if you get hit by two sources, but not all.

Starting levels in general might be too high too, but I'm not sure how much they need to be lowered. Unfortunately, a FO is going to have enough TP to spam support almost the entire stage. A reduction in character level and fluid count could be a good starting point.

I need to do a lot more testing.

EDIT: Oh, forgot to mention that it was fun :blobthumbsup:
 
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Matt said:
Stat requirements for all weapons need a revisit. I'm guessing that they currently follow the patterns of the commons, but due to the high levels in Ultimate, every class can equip everything (even FO can equip many weapons it shouldn't be able to), meaning HUcast dominates and there's no reason to play anything else.
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I was thinking about this when I made them, and I told pretty much everyone that the stat requirements were super subject to change. I wouldn't mind revisiting them once we know starting levels, making them more or less 1:1 with when they can be equipped in Normal CM.
 
OK, I've made some changes to the code and will update in the morning.

I've made the following changes:

- Changed starting levels again.
- Removed Resta from Forces in the early stages.
- Adjusted experience multipliers.
- Changed the Ultimate C-mode section of the ItemPT to match more with the Normal C-mode one. (Adjustments made to area patterns, enemy DAR and box drops.) Enemy DAR was actually too low, in most cases, but boxes were dropping way too many weapons.
 
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